Businessman 'published Anarchist Cookbook of how to make bombs' and sold them for £24 each

Accused:Terence Brown arrives at Winchester Crown Court where he is facing terror-related charges

A businessman published a 'terrorists' handbook' that included how to make bombs using sources such as the al Qaida training manual, a court heard today.

Terence Brown, 47, made CDs containing tens of thousands of pages of information from his home in Portsmouth with topics like 'how to make a letter bomb' and 'how to enter countries illegally', it was claimed.

The prosecution alleges the information could have been used by terrorists to commit atrocities.

Brown called the CDs the Anarchist Cookbook and sold hundreds worldwide in yearly editions for 35 US dollars (£24) each.

Later it became a double CD limited edition set, Winchester Crown Court heard.

Brown allegedly had a now-closed website called www.anarchist-cookbook.com where the CDs could be bought from 2003 until 2008 and buyers either sent cash or used a credit card to pay for the discs.

Parmjit Cheema, prosecuting, told the jury: 'The defendant is a man who made money by producing and selling computer discs from his home in Hampshire that went all over the world.

'However, the discs he painstakingly produced and sold contained a vast collection of material downloaded from the internet of which substantial parts could be of practical use to anyone planning or committing a terrorist attack.'

She said compiling such information was illegal if it would cause a threat to people or governments, even though the CDs ran a disclaimer:

'For educational use only. Do not attempt any activities contained in these CD-Roms. 'Many are illegal and dangerous.'

She said Brown was not sympathetic to terrorists and the jury was likely to hear he did it to make money.

But she told the jury there was a context to the time he was selling the book and that centred around the World Trade Centre attack in 2001, the Bali bombings in 2002, the Madrid train bombs in 2004 and the London bombings in 2005.

'He was putting out his product in that environment for anyone to buy,' the barrister said.

She told the court Brown made no checks who was buying the discs and accepted cash, and would destroy the order to safeguard buyers' anonymity.

Under the terms and conditions, the website said that anyone who is a member of a terrorist organisation should not order the discs.

Some of the titles in the compilation included the CIA secret manual of corrective questioning, homemade poisons, how to make electronic detonators and assassination.

But others had titles like lock picking and camouflage, the court heard.One section had an instruction on how to make a thermite bomb with the introduction: 'Thermite is nasty s**t'.

Brown, from Whitworth Road, Portsmouth, denies seven counts of collecting information that could have been used to prepare or commit acts of terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2000.

He also denies two counts of selling and distributing the information under the Terrorism Act 2006 and a further count under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Miss Cheema said a police officer posing as a member of the public ordered the limited edition set online in December 2007 and the CDs arrived in the post at an address in Winchester.

Police then looked at Brown's website which said there was a limited edition of 2,000 cookbooks on sale because the law was changing and it could soon not be published.

But the barrister said this was not true as it was already illegal and Brown was using the law change angle as a marketing tool.

She said Brown had taken the title of the CD book from the Anarchist Cookbook written by William Powell in the 1970s as a protest against American involvement in Vietnam.

She said the Powell book was available on a website such as Amazon and that Brown's publication was very much bigger and different.

Brown was arrested in April 2008 and in a raid on his home, evidence about his business was found, she said.

The trial is expected to last three weeks.

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Businessman 'published Anarchist Cookbook of how to make bombs' and sold them for £24 each